


The Valley

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Category: Original Work
Genre: Found Footage, Gen, Horror, Monsters, Survival Horror, Trick or Treat: Trick, running for your life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-07-14 05:32:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16033997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: Jackson was the only one left.  Because Foswell had run off to help Jeffries when he heard the scream.  And Jackson had watched Jeffries die well before he started screaming.





	The Valley

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeverwinterThistle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/gifts).



Jackson staggered up the hill, cut, bloodied hands dragging against the rocky ground.  He resisted every urge he had to look over his shoulder, back at the valley.  That would slow him down, and if it was close enough for him to see it, then he was as good as dead anyway.

He was the last.  Had to be.  Foswell had been second last, but unlike him, ran towards the pleas for help.  Maybe it was that Hippocratic oath dragging the old medic off, maybe the rumors about Foswell and Jeffries had been true, maybe he Foswell was just desperate.  Jackson wasn’t dumb enough to try to help; the voice that was asking for help might have been Jeffries’s, but he had seen what the thing had done to Jeffries when it dragged him off.  Jeffries could not have been asking for help, even if something was using his voice to do so.

He also noticed something else about the please that Foswell hadn’t.  Jeffries screams had a rhythm to them.  Two ‘help mes’  in a shifting pitch, one ‘oh God’, two ‘help mes’.  Jackson’s footing slipped out from beneath him, and he fell on his face, cutting his lip.  He scrambled to get to his feet. 

Two help mes.  One oh God.  Two help mes.

Jackson forced himself up, spitting blood.  He was wasting time, although if it was back there, he would be fine as long as Foswell was closer to it.  Unless there was more than one.

Two help mes.  One oh God.  Two help mes.

Jackson trudged his way up the hill again, every inch of his body aching. 

Two help mes.  One oh God.  A shrill, inarticulate scream.

That was Foswell.  Absolutely nothing about the sound of his voice reminded Jackson of the medic, or any person, but that scream had to be Foswell's because the rhythm was broken.  A few more screams sounded more like Foswell. 

In his minds eye, Jackson could see it, the talons digging into the old medic’s abdomen and hooking into bone, then pulling until it came apart.  Foswell's screaming being muffled as acid burned it’s way through his face, down his nose and mouth through his windpipe.  The thing arranging the fragments when every bit of meat was slurped up.

This was never supposed to be easy.  “The chance of a lifetime is never easy”, Foswell had said.

But it was never supposed to be _this_ , either.

He had to keep going, had to get to the camp.  It had not attacked them until they ventured into the valley.  So maybe at base camp it would not follow?  He’d get to camp, radio for help.  The fucker could have its valley, or maybe the footage he had in his camera would convince them to burn the fucking place to the ground.

He could almost picture it back home.  Stone-faced privates guarding the door of a room while he, a few officers, and some scientists played it.  They’d be critiquing how undisciplined Gregg was in setting up the camp, how there were no guards—even though they had no warning it would be here and the expedition didn’t have nearly enough people to actually matter as guards.

The scientist would be interested in the valley, the odd flora and fauna. A scrap of Earth that had survived the calamity--except it wasn't the pristine preserved wildnerness they supposed it was, what had lived there was _different_.   Whirling clouds of moths with wings the size of a hand.  The brightly colored iridescent flowers whose petals were coated in something almost like superglue and usually decorated with bits of exoskeleton, feathers, and bone. The shed scaly skin of _something_ that was big, along with tufts of coarse, wiry hair.

The officers would continue to chide about their failure to ensure nobody went off alone.  The scientists would wonder why Jackson didn’t bring anything else back.  Both would be quite interested in It.

The guy whose name Jackson couldn’t remember.  Some long, meandering name from the old country, wherever that was.  Old Country found it first.  The geometric patterns of bone fragment.  Likely from the scrawny, grey deer traipsing around, skittish as hell.  Some of the skulls were intact enough to make that assumption.  Jackson filmed that extensively while Old Country and Jeffries discussed how something clearly intelligent did this.

When they did a headcount and Larson was missing, Jackson filmed the entire search until they found a fresh bone pattern; these were yellowed and wet, unlike the sun-bleached piles they saw.  It was also bigger than the little deer, didn’t have any hooves.  And the teeth they could find had fillings. 

Jackson stopped filming when it got too dark to stumble back to basecamp.  They set up shop there.  Jackson and Old Country had first watch, and did not say a word as they shone lights threw the darkness and clutched the guns they’d never been adequately trained on.  Jeffries and Foswell had relieved them around midnight.

Jackson woke up in the morning.  He did not film his vomiting or freakout, or the others reactions until everyone calmed the fuck down.  Then he filmed the tent he had been sleeping in with Old Country, back slitted open, canvas covered in bloodstains from something being dragged.  They arranged another search, and found another bone pile.

This time the skull was recognizably human.  The part that hadn’t been eaten away anyways.

There was no footage of it on the tape; Jackson had stopped recording except to talk about the dwindling numbers.  It was formula.  The dead man’s name and role.  Joseph Gregg, expedition commander.  Antonia Delacorte, botanist.  Mattieu Ole… Olj… Old Country, biologist.  The winnowing was probably the longest section of the tape, and he hadn’t even included Jeffries or Foswell.

Yeah, he’d get home and show them.

He staggered back to base camp like a living dead man.  In a frenzy he sat and tooled around with the radio, twisting nobs and pushing buttons and slamming his palm against it over and over again until he heard static.  He reported his name and position, asked if they read him, over and over.  It was fatigue and stress that caused him to take too long to realize the static was not coming from the radio.

“Chance of a lifetime.” Foswell said behind him.  The pitch raised and lowered bizarrely when it repeated. “Lifetime.”

-

Nagase sat at the radio, repeating her questions over and over again.  Did Expedition Delta-One need assistance?  Did they read her? 

“This is Arnold Jackson, videographer.” The voice on the other end said.  “We need help.  Send more…”

“Help me!  Help me!  Oh God!” A voice cut him off.

“C-can you read me?” Nagase repeated.  “Jackson, can you give me more…”

Jackson cut him off.  “Send more personnel.”

“Chance of a lifetime.” Someone else at the base camp acerbically noted.  Then a loud burst of static that made Nagase wince.

“Don’t worry, we read you.” Nagase said, pulse racing, fingers flying to type up the report of contact.  “Don’t worry, help is on the way.”

“Chance of a lifetime.”

And then the transmission went dead.


End file.
